August Book, and more on SSM

Next month's book

So I just remembered that I have the book choice for next month (and I just realized that July is almost over). I had originally thought to do Obama's first book, "Dreams of My Father," but I'm all politicked out right now. (FYI, the book has very little to do with politics, and was written at a time when he was still pretty far removed from the political arena, which is why I think it's a very good way to judge his character).

Instead, I've selected The Third Policeman. It's a surrealist story by a not very widely known Irish author named Flann O'Brien. I read a review in the Atlantic on it a while back that peaked my interest (the connections to Lost helped as well).

I've not read it yet, but I have no reason to suspect objectionable content. I will warn people if I find any. I do, however, suspect that some may find it to be a very odd read, so you might want to read some of the reviews before deciding whether or not to buy it.

More on SSM
(this started as part of a comment on Peter's last post, and just started to get too big)

Regarding court decisions on SSM, I do believe that our governments, in basing any sort of law or benefit on marital status, and furthermore by creating mechanisms by which to "validate" a marriage, have created a government-sponsored institution of marriage. If government creates an institution, it also creates a right for individuals who meet the necessary criteria to belong to that institution. Therefore, the right to marry does exists. Just because there are qualifications on that right, does not mean it is not a right--e.g., there are many qualifications on free speech, nonetheless, it is a right.

The question before the courts, in my mind, was "is there a compeling reason for making gender a criteria for the right to marry?" The courts could not think of such a reason, and therefore they did what they had to do. It was this exact same framework that brought about the civil rights movement, and it is exactly this kind of purpose for which our judiciary exists. Now, the burden is upon the legislative branch to either write laws for which there is a clear and compelling secular reason, or upon us as a people to amend the constitution to explicitly define this right to marry.

Personally, I believe that, barring some compelling secular reason that I've so far not seen formulated, government should be marriage-agnostic. It should remove any reference to marriage in its laws and procedures. From a religious standpoint, does it really matter whether government recognizes my marriage?